Wolsztyn - An Autumn Experience

I paid a visit to Wolsztyn for a week during September 2011, as the steam operation had returned to using the Leszno – Zbaszynek line while the Poznan route was being upgraded. I had not photographed this line in detail in colour before and this year may be the last chance to do so. I tried to time my visit for when there might be an interesting sun rise at the time of the early morning departure for Leszno. Unfortunately, I was probably a week too late, although we did have interesting light on the last morning.

There were two locos in operation during my stay, OI49-7 and OI49-59. OI49-7 had to be withdrawn from service on Tuesday 13th due to problems with “studs in the engine”. It’s boiler certificate expires in November, so we wondered if that was it’s last ever run. OI49-59 took over all duties from Wednesday 14th.

We had excellent warm weather apart from the strong wind from the East, which invariably blow a cloud over the sun just as the shutter was about to be released.

The turning triangle at Zbaszynek can no longer be used, so the only steam service from Zbaszynek to Wolsztyn runs tender first. This somewhat limits the photo opportunities to one per day on that section of line. As there is a break of an hour for crew change and oily rag duties at Wolsztyn, it’s a shame they couldn’t use two locomotives, sending the second one down light to Zbaszynek to bring the passenger back chimney first and continuing straight to Leszno. That way, at least they would have been two photo opportunities. So, most of time was spent on the Wolsztyn – Leszno section, where you at least had four opportunities per day to get a decent shot.